Gaps in weather radar coverage leave Delta and Black Belt more vulnerable, but it's not necessarily driven by race

Chart by meteorology student Jack Sillin shows radar coverage and black population. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Severe storms and tornadoes in the Southeast left at least five people dead yesterday, some rural, Jan Wesner Childs reports for The Weather Channel. That makes all the more relevant a recent storm of another kind on Twitter about rural—and racial—disparities in weather warning systems. 

Cornell University meteorology student Jack Sillin, who grew up in the rural South, kicked off a debate March 19 after tweeting that the National Weather Service's radar network leaves many rural Black communities uncovered, and thus less likely to get advance warning of tornadoes and severe storms. "Overlaying demographic data with radar coverage data, it's hard not to notice how the areas most underserved by NEXRAD are also majority Black," Sillin tweeted.

Marshall Shepherd, a meteorology professor at the University of Georgia and former president of the American Meteorological Society, writes for Forbes that Sillin's observation is fair and revealed "a convergence of science, geography and history that is worth a discussion." Rurality is the main factor in coverage gaps, and "in the South, this will bring a large Black population into play. In the West, it is likely to disproportionately impact Hispanic or Native American populations. Of course, these gaps will affect White populations in these regions too. It is important to shatter the narrative that highlighting one group’s challenge minimizes another group."

Sillin replied to Shepherd in an email that however the disparitiescame about, "The gaps are still frustrating, impactful, and consistent with a long legacy of underinvestment in these communities."

Delta authority's new boss says he's cut overhead expenses and will send communities the money

Lee Powell, left, executive director of the Delta
Grassroots Caucus, talked with Peter Kinder.

The temporary boss of the Delta Regional Authority told a regional lobbying group Thursday that he had eliminated more than $500,000 in administrative costs from the agency's $30 million budget, and "We're going to push those resources out to the communities who need them, where they need to be. . . . I think that's a pretty good start for the first two months."

Peter Kinder, who was a three-term Republican lieutenant governor of Missouri, was appointed by President Trump as alternate federal co-chairman of the DRA, which covers 252 counties and parishes in eight states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky. Trump has nominated Christopher Caldwell, an aide to Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, as federal co-chair. The top post requires Senate confirmation, which is pending.

Kinder, who lives in Cape Girardeau, Mo., said the region has "some of the greatest economic challenges of any region in the country," but also has opportunities. He said it has shown its commitment to rural areas by sending 84 percent of its awards over the last six years to places with less than 50,000 population.

Kinder spoke to the opening session of a conference held by the Delta Grassroots Caucus, a coalition of local leaders in the region. Other speakers included Mayor Chuck Espy of Clarksdale, Miss., a former congressman; and Mayor Shirley Washington of Pine Bluff, Ark. Today's speakers include Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, U.S. Sen. John Boozman and U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford of Arkansas.

Life expectancy rates are lower, and are even declining, in some poor, rural counties

Life expectancy varies widely among U.S. counties, and has been decreasing in a few of them, says a study by researchers from the University of Washington and Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands. The study, which used county-level data from 1980 to 2014, found that "life expectancy at birth for both sexes combined was 79.1, but differed by 20.1 years between the counties with the lowest and highest life expectancy." (Study map: Change in life expectancy, by county, from 1980 to 2014; click on image for larger version)

The lowest life expectancy was in counties in South and North Dakota with Native American reservations, the Mississippi Delta and Central Appalachia, researchers said. The highest life expectancies were in counties in central Colorado. Eight of the top 10 counties with the lowest life expectancy are in Kentucky. The other two counties are in Oklahoma and Alabama.

A knot of eight Eastern Kentucky counties had the greatest decline in life expectancy in the United States from 1980 to 2014. In other words, babies born in those counties today are expected, on average, to live shorter lives than their parents, based on recent death certificates. That was true in only five other counties: two in Alabama and one each in Oklahoma, Mississippi and Tennessee.
(Interactive U.S. Health Map by University of Wisconsin Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation shows that death rates in Breathitt County, Kentucky, are well above the national average. The interactive map can be viewed here.)

Researchers said "people are less likely to live longer if they are poor, get little exercise and lack access to health care," Joel Achenbach reports for The Washington Post. Researchers "said the quality and availability of that health care—for example, access to screening for signs of cancer—has a significant effect on health outcomes."

'The Thrill is Gone': Blues master B. B. King passes

UPDATE: May 21: On Saturday, a memorial service will be held in Las Vegas. The following Wednesday his remains will be flown to Memphis; from the airport, at around noon, a procession will move to Beale Street’s Handy Park for a tribute. King’s nickname came from his time in this city when he started being called “Blues Boy,” which was later shortened to B.B.

On May 29, a public viewing will be held at the B.B. King Museum in Indianola from 10 a.m.to 5 p.m. The funeral services will be held at the Bell Grove M.B. Church in Indianola on May 30, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. At approximately 4 p.m., a procession will be led from the church to the Museum, and there will be a private graveside service for family and friends at 5 p.m.

B. B. King, a Mississippi-born master of the blues who influenced Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, and Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green, passed away Thursday at age 89.

B. B. King

"One of the things that enabled B. B. to have such a profound effect on generations of rock-blues guitarists . . . was [his music's] very accessibility—its emotional accessibility in the high-flying, single-string focus of his soloing, and its musical accessibility in the broad range of sources from which he drew," blues historian Peter Guralnick told Terence McArdle of The Washington Post. "He holds the same place in blues as Louis Armstrong did in jazz. He is an ambassador for the music."

King was often introduced as the world's greatest blues singer, and he could "shout and exhort the blues in a harsh, blustery baritone like a backwoods preacher then caress the words with a soft falsetto plea in the same verse," McArdle writes. His style drew from gospel music and big-band jazz, which garnered a wide audience.

Born on Sept. 16, 1925, on a plantation near Itta Bena, Miss., King strove for self-improvement throughout his life. In 1974, he told music journalist Michael Lydon, "My only ambition is to be one of the great blues singers and be recognized. If Frank Sinatra can be tops in his field, Nat Cole in his, Bach and Beethoven and those guys in theirs, why can't I be great and known for it in the blues?" (Read more)

Clinton tells Delta allies good policy needed for rural growth; easier to avoid partisanship at local level

Former President Bill Clinton said he has high hopes for continued economic progress in the area served by the Delta Regional Authority, which he helped create during his presidency, reports the website for the Mississippi Delta Grassroots Caucus, a private support group for the federal agency region.

“There is never going to be enough government money to take a poor region of America out of the dumps all by itself,” Clinton said this month at a caucus meeting. “You’ve got to have private-sector growth. In order to have private-sector growth, you’ve got to have good government policy. You have to have government and the private sector, and increasingly all these great foundations working together.”

The closer to the grass roots, the less national politics complicates things, Clinton said: “All of the debate in Washington tends to be about what I would call macro-economic policy. But real life is lived in what the economists would call microeconomic policy. The more you go to the micro, the more jobs you’re going to create and the more bipartisan cooperation you’re going to have, because there is no other Republican or Democratic way to locate a plan, to start up an agricultural project,” and to do all the other range of economic development activities, the caucus website reports.

Paper spotlights Appalachia's high rate of cervical cancer, a sign of lack of access to health care

A high rate of cervical cancer indicates lack of access to health care in poor communities, and those communities tend to be rural. In parts of Appalachia, for example, death rates from cervical cancer are as high as in many poor, underdeveloped countries. Today, The Courier-Journal of Louisville takes a close look at the problem in Eastern Kentucky. (C-J map, from Kentucky Cancer Registry)

"In Kentucky's mountains, cervical cancer continues to threaten women's lives at some of the highest rates in the United States," health reporter Laura Ungar writes. "Women in Eastern Kentucky get cervical cancer at a rate more than a third higher than the U.S. average -- higher than reported rates in Pakistan, Afghanistan and China. Death rates in Appalachian Kentucky are also far higher than the U.S. average." Rates in some Appalachian counties of Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio are similar.

"It is comparable to a Third World country," Katie Dollarhide of Whitesburg, Ky., told Ungar. She helps run a cervical-cancer research project and prevention program called Faith Moves Mountains. "The reasons behind the higher incidence and deaths are similar to those in the developing world," Ungar writes. "Poverty and lack of health insurance combine with doctor shortages, transportation problems and a cultural tendency for women to care for others while neglecting their own health."

We're talking about "a preventable cancer that has largely been controlled in the United States," Ungar notes. A report from the National Cancer Institute says cervical cancer is high among "Appalachian and other rural whites; rural African Americans, particularly those in the Deep South; Latinas living near the Texas-Mexico border; and Vietnamese American and other Asian women, particularly those in California." For a copy of the report, which has maps showing the range of cancer rates for every county, click here. For Ungar's story and others, click here.

Mississippi Delta Grassroots Caucus has a consensus in a poor region that still has a long way to go

The annual conference of the Mississippi Delta Grassroots Caucus in Little Rock developed a consensus for cooperation, bipartisanship and "maintaining a we-can-do-it attitude," writes Constance Alexander in the Murray Ledger and Times of southwestern Kentucky, part of the Delta Regional Authority's territory.

"Funding of $30 million is also crucial," Alexander writes. "Being proactive is essential, particularly in areas like health care and infrastructure. Housing needs and transportation also demand initiative, with sub-prime loans and the current economic downturn presenting problems of immediate concern."

For economic development, "Thinking outside the proverbial box and taking holistic approaches is advised," Alexander writes. Other strategies include "developing and promoting education as a process of lifelong learning, from pre-kindergarten to post-retirement [and] taking charge of change through innovation, creativity and technology. Moreover, the importance of broadband cannot be ignored, as entrepreneurship relies on access." The group also agreed to take steps toward "energy independence, including alternative fuels, and sustainable and renewable fuels."

Alexander reports, "Speakers and panelists included corporate executives and Washington, D.C., operatives, as well as elected officials, university administrators, community organizers and program officers from a range of non-profits. The common ground they share is the stark reality that the Mississippi Delta region has a poverty rate 55 per cent higher than the rest of the nation, a plight as dire and entrenched as that of Appalachia." The headline on her story is "Still a long way to go." (Read more)

Wal-Mart gives Delta Regional Authority $500,000 to hold local health fairs aimed at diabetes

The Wal-Mart Foundation has given the Delta Regional Authority to hold a series of "Hometown Health Fairs" at Wal-Marts in the federally designated region, 240 counties in Alabama, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.

The first fair will be held in Jonesboro, Ark., on Sept. 29. Others are scheduled at Clarksdale, Miss., Oct. 13; Eufaula, Ala., Oct. 27; Dyersburg, Tenn., Nov. 10; Natchitoches, La., Jan. 12; Paducah, Ky., Jan. 26; Charleston, Mo., Feb. 16; and Carbondale, Ill., March 15. Other fairs will be scheduled as part of the DRA's Healthy Delta initiative, which is designed to encourage Delta residents who have diabetes or may be at risk of developing the disease to see health-care professionals and manage the disease's long-term effects. Almost 10 percent of the region's population have diabetes, well above the national rate of 7 percent.

Each fair will include free screenings of body composition, weight, body fat and body mass index. Total cholesterol, HDL levels, LDL levels, triglyceride levels and glucose levels will be checked. Free blood pressure screenings and other health information will be available. For more information, go to www.healthydelta.com.

Recent closures stir fears for small newspapers, communities in Arkansas

The closure and merger of several small newspapers in Arkansas, in the space of a few days, signals losses of population, losses of local retailers, and in turn a loss of community.

"Newspapers folding, merging or cutting back production is nothing new, although three in one state in the span of a few days is unusual, and new startups have been a rare sight lately," writes Ben Leubsdorf of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "The decline of local businesses and -- especially in the Delta -- dwindling populations pose serious challenges for community newspapers. As owners see their advertising base shrink, publishing a daily, semiweekly or even a weekly becomes more and more difficult, observers say."

Arkansas is home to Wal-Mart Stores Inc., but the company advertises little in newspapers, and when it and other megastores enter a newspaper's territory, local retailerts "either go out of business or become so stressed financially that they can't really afford to advertise much anymore," newspaper analyst John Morton told Leubsdorf, who noted, "Falling population in many rural areas also hurts the local economy."

Leubsdorf gives the details: "The weekly DeValls Bluff Times folded after 53 years of publication, its content absorbed into The Grand Prairie Herald in Hazen, seven miles down the road. ... Within a few days ... the DeQueen Daily Citizen also folded and two newspapers in Monroe County, the Monroe County Sun in Clarendon and The Brinkley Argus, merged to form The Central Delta Argus-Sun." (The weekly DeQueen Bee, which has one of the cutest names of any newspaper anywhere, lives on, under Lancaster Management Inc. of Gadsden, Ala., which bought both papers from a family.)

Leubsdorf interviewed Arkansas native Liz Hansen, a former reporter in the state who studies rural papers as a journalism professor at Eastern Kentucky University. "She said some rural papers are experimenting with other options, such as a voluntary dues model like that which supports public television, or papers banding together to offer group advertising sales. But, she said, there is no 'one ready solution yet.'" The Democrat-Gazette, known for putting little free content online, will sell you this story for $1.95. To get it, click here.

Washington Post sees contrast in largess for big farms, little for small towns in Delta

Gilbert Gaul and Dan Morgan of The Washington Post plow a new furrow in a familiar field today, taking their examination of farm subsidies to 10 counties in the Delta region of northwest Mississippi, where the Department of Agriculture spent $1.18 billion on such subsidies from 2001 to 2005, and only $54.8 million on rural development projects.

"Most residents (Post photo) are black, but less than 5 percent of the money went to black farmers. They own relatively little land, and so they generally do not qualify for the payments," the writers report, calling that "one of the contradictions of federal farm policy, which favors big agriculture over small farms and poor rural towns. In the Delta, it has helped to preserve a two-tiered economy and a widening economic chasm between the races, according to local residents, government officials and researchers." For a Post graphic illustrating the gaps, click here.

"The policy choice that Congress has made is so stark," Charles Fluharty, director emeritus of the Rural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri at Columbia, told the Post. "You see the effects in lots of poor rural communities. But the tragedy is exacerbated in the minority communities." (Read more)